Hey Jungle people,

today we got something very special for you, like we always do in the jungle.

Let's call it a virtual letter that arrived in the jungle mailboxes by Petra,
a german miniature painter on her very own journey like we all travel. If you want to see some of Petra's work or follow her journey, check this link.


It is an awesome read! Intruding, intimate, healing, personal.
If you do not take your time for it, it is your own fault.
I am absolutely impressed and I want to thank Petra for opening up like this. She asked
me what she should do with it. She'd like to publish it somewhere and did not know where she could find the best place to reach as many people as possible. Well, we can help with that :)

I added some photos to the text to seperate the wall of text and add some moments to breathe.
I also added a small comment here and there.

Enjoy and believe me - I am saying it again:
TAKE YOUR TIME AND READ THIS!

_____________________________________________________________________________

Petra:

What the heck am I doing here?
I worried a lot. I never knew why I would feel the way I did, but even in the best company I
sometimes felt like I don't belong; not because I was at the wrong place - it was more like a
submerged feeling of not being good enough and just playing a role to please the others (and
maybe to lull and please myself). It felt like not creating value for the team I am working in, not
giving back to the company that threw money at me every month. That all my achievements
only were met by luck and being at the right place at the right time. I am just lucky, but not an
achiever.

I was always afraid that "the others" might find out that I only screen played, pretended and was
not in the "right" position and that I did not have the right to be right there with them. All in all,
amazing people tend to cross your roads sometimes and you feel utterly lost and you look up to
them out of a muddy hole while they seem to get it all right. They shine. You don't.
It is something that followed me through my adulthood for quite a long time and most probably
started in university. It is an unnamed feeling that I never really understood and tried to ignore
most of the time. It made me feel miserable at work, because even if I worked hard and
succeeded, it faded away when I watched others doing the same stuff with ease. I pressured
myself to get into it even harder, fearing that one day my lead might approach me, telling me
that I am not good enough. Subconsciously I knew this would never happen. Well, no. I did not
know at that time. I can only tell in retrospective that I might have known, but my brain did not
tell me. My thoughts were haunted: when coming to work, this day might be the day they find
out I only gambled my way into the company (I did not). This day would be the day they find out
that I suck at what I am doing (I did not). This day they would tell me I need to resign because I
was not performing well (obviously I did not).

It made my life miserable. I did not know with whom to talk. It was discomforting, unpleasant and
not what I wanted to feel. But as soon as I spoke up, everyone looked at me with big,
unbelieving eyes. Some told me that "it's only in my head". People answered with laughter
because they could not believe what's going on. They tried to hide their own unease and not
being able to cope with this situation themselves, they stormed onward, telling me that I just
made this up and that it is not true what I was talking about. They did not believe that I could
feel this way and why the heck should I?
It got worse with every talk I tried to have with people around me. I hid in my cave. I was a
happy little person to the outside world, always afraid they could find out. Always chattering,
doing things, working hard, not trying to fail (and when I failed, I analyzed why, dug the car out
of the swamp and on I went, trying to not do the same error twice). I didn't even see or believed
in what I achieved, because it never was feeling good enough for me. It was like running behind
schedule, not being in charge anymore and I was going to lose it somewhere on the way,
making a mistake and taadaa: you're out.





A solution?
Then one day I stumbled over Neil Gaiman, and even though I have never read any of his
books (yet), I felt connected. It felt like he was describing me (and lots of other people will have
thought the same):



Source:
http://neil-gaiman.tumblr.com/post/160603396711/hi-i-read-that-youve-dealt-with-with-impostor


This is, what it is called! Impostor’s syndrome!

I'm neither crazy nor too dumb for the world.
Relief - finally! It is something I can start rolling up my sleeves to and attack. Something I can
hack into little pieces and devour one by one, making my life better again. I lived with the fact
that I have it (not tackling it at all) for a long time. Just knowing that this feeling had a name
helped a lot. Even though it did not stop my way down into the snakepit of what I also call my
brain.

Lots of webpages talk about impostor’s syndrome but I found this one to be a good overview of
all the aspects that also hit heavily in my life: http://on.inc.com/2sLeytw
Depending on the time and how well I felt, it was only lurking in the back of my head, not fully
there. Sometimes it unleashed its fury and pinned me down to the floor, unable to move, to
react and to tell people what was going on. Those were the times I just hid in the dark corners of
my soul, ready to attack everyone who came near. I cried, because I did not know what to do. I
asked for help desperately but there was none, because no-one near me could cope with it.
All of the information I gathered in the internet also meant that I am not alone on this road and
that there are lots of people that sometimes feel the same. And that other people can lift you up
again (just not by saying that “it's only in your head”). I know now that I myself cannot get out of
it alone, but that I might need help, someone to mirror me, maybe to assess me and to reflect
on my achievements whenever I am not able to see them.




Introduction: the miniature world
For all of you with a miniature background: you know what I am talking about. For all of you who
don't know: there is a community spanning the earth of miniaturists. People who play tabletop
games (not only Warhammer), people who paint little tin soldiers, plastic and resin miniatures,
busts, vehicles, aircrafts, trains, small animals, huge animals, sculpt, create, make art. It is a
small community, that is really active (and we grow). It is a vast field of gamers, enthusiasts,
collectors, painters, creators and builders. The community starts to get diverse, also women
take part more often in events. We have forums, facebook groups, instagrams full of tiny and
wonderfully painted art, flickr, Pinterest. We are everywhere. We have teachers who hold
workshops and seminars about light, ambience and painting. We have contests and community
events, big and small. Some of the bigger annual events take place in Bavaria, the Netherlands,
Italy, some in Australia and America, Poland and Russia - and even more. Those are the spots
where several hundreds to thousands of people meet one weekend a year and exchange
everything. It is about meeting old friends, finding new, conversate about painting, art and the
miniature economy. All in all a great place to find a whole bunch of creative people clung
together and exchanging creative energy.

Living in the miniature world with impostor’s syndrome
I am still on the road to escape the trap of not feeling worthy and good enough. In the miniature
world, it sometimes is still there; kind of returning "back home" to me. I was attending Scale
Model Challenge 2017 in Eindhoven and on Saturday evening after a splendid day, I found
myself holding a beer, surrounded by some of the (by me) most adored (and still alive) artists in
my life. Every one of them has been longer in the hobby, longer down the creation road than I.
They influenced the way we talk about miniatures, the way we see them. They created new
streams inside the hobby, new flows, new ways to work. They practise mindfulness, chaos,
anarchy and strictly ruled ways. They all had so much more experience, have done so much
more trial and error on their way. They have so much more to say. And then there was I - a
returnee into the hobby for roughly one and a half years. We chatted. And suddenly the wave
rushed over me again. I felt intimidated, at the wrong place, I wanted to flee because I haven't
wanted to be detected as a fraud again. I write "again" because it felt like being close to the
edge of a huge cliff with being there. My brain was in uproar: Now, every moment! They will lay
eyes upon you, judge you and make you go!
They did not.


I forced myself to stay. To listen (I always was a better listener than talker - and a better writer
than talker as well). I drowned in the laughter, the joy, the people. I was there. And I had the
right to be there. Even though I still did not understand why. They did let me stay and even
introduced me to new people. I was humbled. I was even fangirling a bit. And I was stuck. I
needed someone to ground me again. I was flying high, looking down at myself, standing there
in the middle of the night, surrounded by creative people. I adored each and everyone of them.
The creative energy that they exhaled filled my soul, and it was thirsty for more. But my mind
still tricked me into thinking I had no right to be here. I did not know what to do - please, please,
please do not turn on the spotlight on me, do not ask questions, do not interact with me; I am
happy for just staying here . Just smile and wave. They are all in all humble people and they
would never say any of those things, that were hammering in my brain at that moment, to
anyone. Still, my brain was firing everything of the above at full speed, light speed, even Warp
9.9 was not fast enough. It was a lovely evening that did not turn into a disaster - even if my brain foretold this a hundred times.


Fast forward to other events:
Everytime I show something to people, they are going mildly crazyabout what I created (or in the reasonable voice of everyone else: they like it). I receive the praise and the likes - but my mind was telling me " WTF! This is nothing. It is not even worth thetime and effort to comment on it, you people! Why are you even doing this?! Now you go on, brush off those words as if they mean nothing and move on. Go, create, because what you just did was shit ". My brain kills the happiness out of creating something that others liked. This sucks. Big time.

In social media times it is even worse. 
I want to show the community what I did; also to train mywary brain to accept praise, likes and thanks. And with every like and compliment it feels like people overestimate what I did. Meanwhile I underestimate myself heavily - there are times Iunderstand that (most times I don't). There's no internal “success light” that switches on and enlightens the room when I finish something. Being proud on creations only lasts for a week max - which makes it a wee bit hard to always feel good about creating things. Being brave enough to show others has an even more limited time frame.

Looking around and trying to measure one's own "success" by comparing to others is just plain
odd and nothing one should do. There are so many talented and hard working painters and
artists out there who are on a different journey and skill level. But still we do it from time to time
(some people more than others). People write "I will go home and snap my brushes, I will never
achieve this level". Please don't kill brushes; you are just on another level of learning. I know I
commented about breaking brushes once on a posting as well (mostly, because I haven’t found
another way to express my deep admiration for the piece), paying into the whole comparison
competition. I do call it “comparison competition” because we tend to make a competition out of
mostly everything. This person is evolving faster, that one is painting cleaner than me. We are
excellent in making “comparing” a competition.

I don't know, but my own comment about snapping brushes might also have influenced another
person who read this comment back then to build up their impostor’s syndrome. I only
understand this now. People like me are rather sensitive when it comes to comments on their
own and other people’s works (mostly on their own works, though).



It's hard. It's in my head.
I need to deal with it - but I cannot do this alone (which makes me
angry and sad at the same time, as I want to have control over my life). I need you. Each and
every one of you in my life to at least help from time to time. To recall for me that feeling
incompetent and being incompetent are two different things. That I sometimes have unrealistic
notions of what it means to be competent. Also that it is in my head and that I have to deal with
it; you need to tell me that I am being unrealistic in my own view on myself. I cannot do this on
my own. Because I do not see it.
It feels like lots of people out there might suffer from the same. Maybe not as heavy as I did
somewhen in the last year - but if this helps only one person understanding that they need to
become aware about their impostor’s syndrome before being completely shattered to the
ground, then all my words are worth it.

Now, what can I do to live a win-win life with my impostor’s syndrome?


I talked a lot about myself and my path, my journey in this article. I don't know if it would help. It
is not a big deal (hello, impostor’s syndrome speaking again), and maybe no-one will read
through the end. But this is what I get from being open, and I need to understand that the
uncertainty that comes with publishing those words, might influence myself with even more
questions my brain might fire at me.

Lot's of the following points actually can be distilled into one short and easy sentence:
"No matter what: You are worth it."
(I don't say that often enough to myself.)

Following I will line out some things I tried and that helped me on my way (some more, some
less). In the end it is up to you. Try, fail, improve; listen to yourself and what helps you. It is not
working if you just follow the rules and you gain nothing from it. Debug yourself. If things don't
feel good, leave them and experiment. It is easy as that (wow, that took me long to understand).
So: not easy as that, but more like running a marathon. In a swamp. Even if done slowly (and it
will be exhausting), it will lead to your goal. The good thing is, there is no-one to judge you
except yourself. Be kind to yourself; it is like learning a new language or instrument or a new
painting technique. It might take some time, but you will master it eventually. In your own time.
Do not compete. Do not compare. You are good enough. You are worth it.
This really should be your mantra. :)

The nice thing about the following points is, that you can also use them for your daily work that
is not miniature painting.

● Have a schedule of when you want to work on things.
With everything that you are learning or that you try to improve, there is a good way to
practice. When I was young, my music teacher told to practise at least half an hour a day
(max an hour) with my instrument. Try to get into a routine and do not do overtime , not
even if the brain commands you to - it won't help (at least it did not for me). If afternoon
shifts do not work, try getting up half an hour earlier. Experiment. Maybe you are happy
with only painting once a week. Stick to it.

● Come up with a plan on what you want to work on.
Write down the techniques you want to learn, the miniatures you want to paint. Plan.
Planning does not necessarily mean that you need to stick to it 100% (plans are not set
in stone). But it helps you focus on what topics are still there to tackle. And written down
topics can be ordered, scheduled and moved around. You can set your goals, and the
steps that you need to take to achieve your goals. Write it down. Make a plan. Even if
you don't stick to it, you know where you want to head.

● Make realistic goals.
Rome was not build in a day. If you want to learn a new technique, try it, make errors,
ask people, watch videos, read blog posts, and the most important thing: go to
workshops, meet people, connect. You are on your own road and journey, you will never
be a fraud there.

● Take before and after pictures of your miniatures
(or everything else you create).
It helps getting focus. You can see what changed in the time you painted, even if it is
only minimal. And having all pictures lined up near each other also might help to see the
progress and improvements you have made.

● Create a miniature diary and add
what you liked to work on that day.
Put in colour recipes that worked, brush strokes, random thoughts, ideas, base designs,
scribbles and drawing, pictures of the progress, everything that you find adds value to
your miniature experience. It will be little at first but it helps you getting your creative
energy flowing as soon as you revisit the pages.

● Keep a personal diary and write down
at least one achievement per day.
This can also just be a Post It hanging somewhere - the key idea is to visualize it so that
you can see it. This challenge might be hard in the first time, as you won't see
achievements a lot popping up. But try. Maybe it is something as tiny as getting a perfect
lining, a blending that you saw. Reading (or writing) a blog post that you always wanted
to do. There can be so many things.

● Whenever viewing other artists pictures,
don't get discouraged.
They all have different lives, different styles, different backgrounds. As written earlier: try
not to fall into the trap of comparison competition.

● Another thing to keep in mind and repeat as a mantra:
It is not talent (even though talent gives you a head start). It is hard work (also: hard work can be fun work!). It is hours and hours of practice and study. Don't expect to perfectly handle a new topic in one day.

● Don’t compare your life to someone’s Highlight Reel.
And yes, this most heavily applies to social media. The pictures that are shown only relate to
the achievements, normally not to all the failures on the way. No-one wants to look bad
on social media. Everyone is smiling. Stop thinking that other people only have luck in
their lives.

● If you suddenly feel like a fraud in a situation, voice it.
It is difficult and you need some trust and maybe a safe space to do so. But it helps to voice your concerns and that you feel you wouldn't fit. Take care and time to approach people. Voice what you need right then. Tell people you cannot engage into small talk right now. Tell them you only want to
listen for a while because you need to have some space or you don't know how to
handle social interaction right now. This might be awkward at the beginning, but making
people aware of your condition helps relieving the stress that your brain puts upon you.

● If you see someone cope with impostor’s syndrome,
don't approach them and tell them "Hey, you have impostor’s syndrome!". Guide them passively. Tell them about your own way, your journey about not feeling good enough, and eventually they will open up. Help them see their achievements and the way they already went, if you are already closer to them. Offer an open ear and a helping hand.

● Take a picture of your first and most recent miniature.
You will see the difference; you are not an impostor, you get better over time and this is your outcome. No-one else will paint like you do.

● Just so you have something to hold in your hands and re-read it to understand that you are valuable and good in what you do: ask people to write you Kudo cards (it’s a tool that is usually used to increase recognition of valued work). Tell them they should write down
what they value in your work, your hobby, what they admire about you, where you are
succeeding expectations for them. Let them visualise a picture of you, so that you can
catch your mind as soon as it is out of the window again, telling you that you are not
good enough.

● Try to hold on to praise once in a while, don't shy away and go into duck-and-cover position. Gain trust in the fact that people tend to mean what they say. Even when they
say that they like something built by you. :)

There could be a million more ways to get out of the dark hole into which the impostor’s
syndrome is pushing us. Most of the ways apply to any other situation as well, it is not only
hobby related, I know. But this might be the first step into the right direction.

I am still on my journey. 
How about you? 

Petra :)

Hey dear jungle dwellers,
just a quick note why the jungle is rather slow from my side these days.
I am going through some changes in private life right now and therefore energies are bound to these things. I can not help it. It is like it is. Do not worry, I am doing good. It is just that I am behind tasks such as organisational emails, shipping out the final charge of the MV challenge, answering messages all over the social places, prepping upcoming private coachings and weekend workshops and much more. I ask your pardon and patience as I see writing articles on MV not on the highest point on my priority list right now.

I am on it.
Push on, but mails and messages somehow do not get less :)
This does not mean I would like to stop throwing my thoughts and updates in the jungle, it is just getting irregular. I am off and do the things I need to do with ...


Find my personal music playlist that I am listening to while happy painting on youtube!


Keep on happy painting!
Roman

This lady and her voice are gorgeous ...

KONG FU
Something on my soul again that I have to write down. It is about the early months of 2017 were I tried to make vacation from blogging in the jungle due my lack of energy and motivations. Somehow I went through a foggy valley and the break in blogging showed me several things:

• I miss blogging in here. If I do not do it in here I feel somehow restless and unhappy.
• Massive Voodoo is not only a blog for me, where I share my work and ideas and thoughts
• Massive Voodoo is some kind of friend for me, a harbour to share and be myself
• Massive Voodoo is also a great tool to stay connected and communicate
• Many thanks for the many conversations I had with many people recently. Not only for me, but also for you Massive Voodoo communicates so much. Not only content, but also a philosophy, a way of life, a spirit and much more. When I quit writing for some time I missed that link to you all - the readers of the blog, other miniature painters outthere - and it made me sad. It took me quite a while to understand this. 
• Somehow Massive Voodoo turned more work for me in 2016 and many blogposts were "work influanced", but I slowly want to change this again. I am finding back to my roots of using MV as a tool to communicate, share energies and vibes instead of numb, heartless posts. This Kong Fu is to understand it all and a step in this direction.
• I am really happy to have my own artist portfolio online now - www.romanlappat.com - so I can seperate the working part more from the initial spirit of Massive Voodoo and find back to its roots. Everyone who is blogging in the field of miniature painting regularly for a while will know what I mean. Doing it since 2009 now. This split is a little bit like working from home and then moving work to a studio place like I did in the past. It seperates things more clearly for oneself. 
• Life sometimes needs a readjusting with several things, some of these steps go easy, others hard. Some are easy to see and understand and tackle, others not. And as Massive Voodoo is a part of my life, spirit, personality I am up to tackle things in here too :)

So for those of you who fear Massive Voodoo someday being forgotten or going behind romanlappat.com, fear not :) ... finishing this with some more music (actually really happy to enjoy music once again, really had some months where every kind of music and noise annoyed me):


- Roman

Well 
this post was initially meant to be something else,
but you know that the jungle always was and always will be some kind of diary for me.
Now it is again. I call this a good sign.

Btw Roman writing.
I got things messed up with the accounts.
Sorryio.

I wanted to tell you how great I feel being well prepared for a 2017 full of blogging on Massive Voodoo.

How I prepare posts in advance, how many tutorials I still have in the back of my folders from 2016.
How good I feel being so well prepared and how much I am looking forward to post on MV for our readers.

... but unexpected everything came different.
After my weekend seminar in Hamburg I realized I am a little overworked, burned out. Not as bad as I once were, but still visible signals that showed me that I have to go on vacation.
Now I am on vacation since about three weeks. Sadly I was not able to head out, travel and conquer the world and its beauty.

"Vacation" for me looks like this right now: 
Not painting figures all, but I cleaned up and prepared my workspace in the studio, write my regular emails (but much slower and relaxed, thanks for your patience everyone). 

I delayed some comission work for later to be really able to paint them with my natural strength (thanks for understanding everyone). I canceled the Basing Seminar in Sweden due taking time off in August to be able to go on a travel holiday with my girlfriend and recharge. Of course we will do the class in the future. I'll be there. Why no travel journey right now you might ask? Well, I do not know. Maybe I was already a bit too well prepared. Dates like private coachings, seminars and my first exhibition outside the miniature world quickly showed me that I am not able to completly shut off from work as there is work to do.

So I calmed down from being close to a burnout with preparing stuff for a flea market in May, sold many of my books, cleaned up and cleaned up again. Did write most important emails and such and cleaned the flat again. Meanwhile enjoying early spring sun whenever possible.

Exhibition
After some days without studio and miniatures I realized that some creativity shows up through the fog of grey color again. I started to draw some drawings for the exhibition (as first I did not know what to show there, me as a full artist with miniatures, photos and illustrations) and decided which photos I will show during this event. Some days ago - as I am holding the exhibition together with a good friend and canvas painter, Susanne Ziegler - we went to the place and checked the available rooms in the castle and I realized through talks and brainstorms that my main focus of this exhibition will be miniatures as this is mostly me when it comes to my art.

I see this as a good chance to show the passion about miniature art to people who have never seen it before. A small step for humanity, but a big step for the miniature world. Therefor I am in the middle of planning explanation boards to show more about miniature painting than only the models I have painted. This will be interesting and I might bring you some more information to this when available.

romanlappat.com
I took the chance of the exhibition to put some more work to my artist portfolio homepage I got in the making since 1,5 years now. I think it could be nice, if people want to see more of my work after visiting the exhibition. Sure I will also link to Massive Voodoo, but as I have heard from my mum: Many people who do not know the miniature world do not understand the Massive Voodoo blog on the first sight. It is too confusing and she is right. So, in my vacation I am also working on this.

Several other bigger projects for 2017/18 keep my mind occoupied also. Since I decided to exhibit mainly miniatures I did quit drawing. Now I am preparing plenty of posters and art prints for the exhibition.

MV's Jar's Advanced Class - Blumberg
I am pretty much looking forward to go to Blumberg next weekend to hold my second Advanced Class ever. Greatly supported by Hasslefree Miniatures. I will meet many friends and long time students of mine and will push them forward in their understanding of applying strong atmosphere to their models. Even if I am not painting much myself these days I am really looking forward to teach. Also it will be a nice weekend around the seminar as I am heading there with my monkeybrother Peter, visiting him earlier in Stuttgart.

Massive Voodoo Blog Posts
Well, lately I have realized, that I am saying I am on vacation. I do holidays from painting miniatures and blogging, right, but still I am working on other things. I think it just has to be like that and I can not force myself to anything. Listening to the flow again, I am looking forward to some more posts by me, here in the Massive Voodoo jungle. Let's see when they drop in and when I touch a brush again. I bet on the upcoming weekend :)

Some fine music:

Hey Jungle Painters,

today all of your Massive Voodoo Team wants to wish all of our readers, friends, family and everyone who celebrates Christmas holidays
Merry merry Christmas!

We will not post any traditional christmas songs here,
just one cool one
and a second one.




More photos done by Roman: 
https://www.instagram.com/taleofthebananawhale/

Roman writing a little Christmas Kong Fu:
Enjoy the more silent days of the year with friends, family and loved ones.

Looking at the world nowadays this is what the world needs. More calm minds, freedom, love and peace. Easier said than done. The winter holidays, including the celebrations of Christmas is a long history and even I am not a religious person at all I learned that there is one rule/religion everyone should live by to have a better world: Spread happiness in your circle of people you can reach. They will spread happiness too and the small circles one day will be bigger. Do not spread anger, hate, greed or envy. It one day will all come back to you.

It is not only Christmas time you should live this. 
You can do this every single day in your life. Be nice to your neighbour, friends, family, community, homeless people, unknown people - take time to help others or even offer help in any case. Smile. Make someone else happy with maybe a small gesture. Be honest. To yourself. To others. Make decisions that do not hurt you or others, if need be speak clearly, directly and honest to make the one sitting with you understand your points of view. Grief honestly if need be. Make sure to know your weakness to be able to help others with the person you are. Think yourself in other persons shoes, before you judge them. Be more self-confident in spreading your good.

I rember reading the following tale/message/meaning 
by Mario somewhere over the year 2016 on facebook and it stunned me - it is out of a book, nobody really knows and we are even unsure if it is really about a samurai - I write it in my own interpretation, but I am pretty sure you get the meaning :

A samurai gets approached by his students...
They want to know more secrets of life from him and he offers them a lesson, he is asking:

"If someone gives you a gift and you do not accept it. Who does the gift belong too?"

The students got to think a little, because it can be unpolite to not accept a gift, but their answer is:
"If you do not accept the gift it will belong to the one who is delivering it. It is still his."

The Samurai answers:
"Right, and it is the same when someone approaches you with anger, hate, envy and all bad emotions. You can accept them and make them a part of you too or you do not accept them and they will stay with the person who delivers them."


Well, this really stunned me and helped me a lot to be a better person. Just wanted to tell this again here. Now not to be ultra pathetic in here we also want to give one of our readers a very special ...

Massive Voodoo Christmas gift

My workbench is usually covered with two cutting mattes.
One new and shiny and the other one a mess of creativity. It grew over the year 2016 and now it is time for a new one. This old one is full of memories of me, I used it to draw, paint, write notes, do teaching examples, dozen of moments of happy painting with happy accidents and did dirty work on it.

Some might think, that I am giving garbage as a present here, but do not get this wrong. For me this is something very personal and maybe someone will hang it to his wall or even use it himself. Maybe there are happy painting energies hidden in it and they will influance you. Who knows. To the right corner it will recieve a personal dedication to the person who will win it.


The person who wins this will also recieve the original drawing of MV's Christmas Gorilla, done by me:


How can you win this?
Write a comment below this post, whatever you like, about Christmas, about Gorilla's throwing around Christmas trees, Harambe, cats, miniatures, icecream or your most impressive moment in 2016. Whatever you like. You can only do a "hello" if you are shy. Only one comment per person.

We will make a raffle from everyone who commented until 28th of December and one lucky person will recieve this Christmas gift out of the jungle of Massive Voodoo. It will be a late Christmas gift as we will ship it in the new year. Shipping is on us of course.

Questions?
Comment ;)

Merry Christmas to you all!
Your MV-Team

Hey Jungle Painters, 

Roman just returned home from his painting class in Madrid, Spain.
It was his first time in Spain and he enjoyed a great journey. Thanks to everyone involved.
Roman will sit down soon to write the full review of the weeken, showing you full insight into such a cool and funny weekend, but before something personal has to be written of his soul.

Roman is now taking over:

_________________________________________________________________________________

This is something different.
Something I was thinking about for a longer time now. Something very personal, that is why I call it Kong Fu. Something out of my perspective as a person, painter and teacher. I wanted to tell the Miniature Painters outthere about the Miniature painters that influanced me very much. I just had no idea where to start or with whom to start. I know exactly the persons I want to write about and what I want to write, but so far never had any idea of the format.

Now I found it. I want to start with a painter from Spain, Madrid that many people already know:




"A banshee is a female spirit in Irish mythology who heralds the death of a family member, usually by shrieking or keening. Her name is connected to the mythologically-important tumuli or "mounds" that dot the Irish countryside, which are known as síde (singular síd) in Old Irish.^{[1]" -} From Wikipedia

Obviously Alfonso is not female, 
but he is loud, yelling, roaring, shrieking and keening.

I hear him since I started miniature painting.
When I started miniature painting myself Alfonso was already a big name in the miniature world. Winner of many Golden Demons, Slayer Swords and so on, but all this did not make him a great painter back then for me. 

His work was always something that fascinated me. Always. 
I learned from him from the beginning on I was taking a look at his work. Always.

The first contacts I had with him back then were only online and he was a dick -  unpolite and arrogant was my first impression I had when I recieved my first comment by him on CoolMiniorNot. 
And yes. I still think this comment was meant to be like that. I do not remember the comment right now, sorry. Nothing wrong with that, because this is Alfonso great strength:  
Honesty. Loud, yelling, roaring, shrieking and keening.



Honesty is something very important in this life.
First of all honesty to yourself. That is what I have learned for myself. Know about your strength and your weaknesses. The goal of honesty to yourself is to create a better version of you in the future.

And why should Alfonso not be honest about if he does not like something?
He has the same strength in his voice when it comes to something he likes. 

Ok, he is loud and direct. I met him the first time at my first Monte San Savino Show and we had good, but talks with a certain distance, like two dogs smelling eachother. Now get these pictures out of your mind, please. I just did not find better words for it. Good talks in Italy, but we did not know eachother.

Since then, when I think about Alfonso I think of a spanish bull, full of pride, power, energies and a will to charge. Rather charge than back off. My personal impression since my first meeting with him.



Next time I meet Alfonso was in one of his painting classes, organised in my hometown, Augsburg.
Main topic of this was him explaning his approach on color theory and on painting. In the last years Alfonso's approach on painting changed over the years. He changed many. Including me. In this class he can open up a door for you if you want to listen.


I went to his class during a time I was not in my best state of health and mind. The winter before this class I saw a dark valley and think it was some kind of small depression. I learned to get out there again. I learned that no light without shadow can exist. Alfonso's class helped me to understand it beside many other factors. In the end I can say Alfonso gave me back my happy painting juju.

First, after the class I was supermega confused. Then I took a class with Kirill Kanaev and guess what I was even more confused. I did not want to copy their way of working as I was more thinking to let their style influance my way of working and painting. I was multiconfused. And I knew how to be less - I had to paint. Paint, work with the brush and color to understand what I was aiming for. So I painted and I did not like the stuff I was painting back then. For a while. When the hurt was over I felt joy again, slowly found my way back into my spirit and juju of painting and workflow. Alfonso's class had a big influance on this. Also Kirills. And more factors, but I will write about such in future articles in this style, if you enjoy this one.

Here is a good impression on what you can get out of his class about color theory if you go there with the will to learn about painting:
Last weekend I was holding one of my MV's Beginners Classes in Madrid, Spain and was able to meet great people, great students and honest kindness whereever I looked. So much hospitality and joy in painting. I will write the review soon! Can not wait actually, but have to prepare another painting class first and answer tons of mails ... well, work things out.

Madrid.
My first time in Spain.
Beside all the wonders and happy moments I enjoyed during my weekend class for me it also meant I will be able to get to know Alfonso better. I did. He did. We did.


I was happy to spent time with him. He is loud, wild, angry, sad, happy, true, honest, strong, weak, scared and brave with all he is in the most honest way he can be. I enjoyed this as I learned to be like this myself. Honest to myself. Accepting own weakness, gaining strength from it. Maybe not as loud as him :)

I really enjoyed being guest in his studio, in his home and really enjoyed every moment with him, even some were a little wild in organisation. That is him and I accept him with all his weakness and strength. I call him a friend and even more one of the most inspirational painters I know, from my point of view.

Prado Museum 
Alfonso is there very often to understand more and more about painting. I was able to go there with him too, in great company. We did not have a lot of time and I asked him if he would show me his favourites. This was an amazing experience. I want to do this again. You can not imagine, being here ...


... or in many other places of this great jewel of art history with a wild, loud, powerful, energized, passionate banshee. Many people, including us tried to make him go pssstt, but you had to remind him after seven seconds about the same pssstt again. It was amazing. To be very dramatical I would even say I would pay for this experience if you could book Alfonso for this.

Some great and unbelievable inspirational moments and hours,
even when I usually grow very silent when confronted with art in this scale. This was an experience only Alfonso can give you, because he is Banshee.

#fucksmoothness series. nº6

We had a lot of talks about happy painting, about fucksmoothness and about other messages floating around in the miniature world and community. Really deep and good and most important honest talks.



Der Schornsteinfeger kommt am: 

A gift for the studio from Toni.
A wall of memories just like in MV jungle cave.

Somehow Alfonso and I speak the same language, of course with different voice levels and ways of teaching and doing. Every person, every painter is different. In the end we all aim for one very important thing: Enjoying what we do. From this we are able to learn, if we have fun we learn more things faster. If fun is running low passion can be lost.

It was wonderful to get to know more of the person who is Alfonso Giraldes, for me he is one creative genius, a mastermind even I do not like the word master, only in "Masters of the Universe".

What I have learned:

#Fucksmoothness is nothing you have to drop, cuz it is hot.
Fucksmoothness is something to appreciate with open arms as with it comes joy.
It does not mean to fuck smooth painting styles, it just means you should find your own by experementing what you like most about painting and then paint on with joy.

Alfonso is definatly in my top five miniature painting artists. I always enjoy his loud work. He was already painting when I started and since then he did not stop painting, thinking about painting, teaching about painting and learning more on his own path as a painter. If I am a pool of knowledge, Alfonso can be considered the ocean. The ocean can be calm, but also wild. Maybe Alfonso is the wind. A wind leads to a storm. Loud and roaring where he appears, like a Banshee.

Want to follow Alfonso?
You can see some of Alfonso's work on

Putty&Paint: http://www.puttyandpaint.com/BansheeArtStudio

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/alfonso_giraldes_banshee/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/alfonso.giraldes.banshee






Well, with this Kong Fu I want to start a series of such Kong Fu's. 
Miniature Painters who influanced me the most on my journey so far. They will come up not regularly as I have to find the right time to write and feel this, but be sure there will be some more. You will find this linked up in the interview section of MV.

Let me know if you enjoyed this and I will work on more articles like this.
Please use the comments for this. Thank you.

NEWS: 
There will be a recorded interview, I am interviewing Alfonso. Be sure not to miss this in the future to come!

Happy Painting!
- Roman

Next ones on my list, but please be patient - very patient:
Georg Damm aka Georc
Kirill Kanaev aka Yellow One
Christian Reckert aka Bestienmeister
Peter Toth aka Baphomet 
Fabrizio Rusto aka Rusto
Raffaele Picca aka Picster
Jeremie Bonamant Teboul 
Ben Komets
Sebastian Archer
Marc Masclans 
Pepa Saavedra
and many more ...


_______________________________________________________________________________
You want to support Massive Voodoo? 
If you like to support or say thanks the monkeys of Massive Voodoo in what they do, please feel invited to drop a jungle donation in their direction via paypal or check their miniatures they got on sale here.

Hey Jungle,

first of all:
A healthy and good year 2016 to everyone!


From my personal perspective 2015 ended really crazy.
My girlfriend, my cats and I moved to a new appartment. Several weeks without a proper head for painting miniatures or working as a self employed artist.


Long weeks of preparations for the move, followed by the move itself, followed by a succesful fight to get the chaos of a move in good order. I thought about relaxing after this was done, but then Christmas knocked at the door and then more and more dropped in to make a crazy end of 2015. The end of 2015 truely put a spell on me, it seemed.



Well, but no spell lasts forever. It feels good to have survived all this and the horizon shines some light through the fog. 2016 appeared and with it MV has big plans. That means I do too as I am a very active member of the MV-Team. On January 9th we will have this years first meeting of MV Members in Augsburg (Bene, Peter, Roman, Raffa) to put the magic spell of happy painting on you all through 2016.

Why not make this post as crazy as the end of 2015 actually was.
Impressions, things that influanced my december, inspired me or made me crazy. First the last month of 2015's REEF Calender promised an inspirational month:








Then hunting Christmas tree - all family at our new flat, more christmas days, recharging batteries, simple new years eve and there we are: 2016. I want to thank all of my friends who helped me through these days of chaos december. Arrigato!

I am looking forward to work my passion through the upcoming year and plans are made, plans are ahead and some are already announced. I am looking forward to see the blog give me a little more structure once more, as 2016 was announced as the year of the painter 2. We will have tutorial voting every Tuesday and the voted article on Thursday/Friday. This will be so cool and I am already prepared with more than a handful of wonderful articles for you .


MV Workshop Roadmap 2016
Also January starts with two painting classes of mine. One MV's Jar's Beginners Class and one MV's Jar's Basing Class in Augsburg, Germany. In February I'll head to Graz, Austria to give my MV's Jar's Advanced Class a reality check. Really looking forward too meet my students there.

I can only recommend to you to stay put to daily blogging in the massive jungle.
You will not regret it.

I have no idea if this post has any weight, it was just written to get these crazy days of my chest and brain. Now it's time to arrive in the new home and spend time there and find the every day routine. The blog will help me with that and I am looking forward to meet/read you there!

Keep on happy painting!
Best Wishes
Roman

Hey Jungle Painters,


Roman is writing some personal words now,
a long time overdue Kong Fu hits the jungle:



BANANALICIOUS 2 is over!
The biggest online community painting contest the "Bananalicious 2" was finished by the last post where we presented the winners of this amazing event. It is just up to us to sent all the random prizes and the medals on the way. We can not do this today, but we will start early next week as busy days are behind and ahead of us: Raffa is getting married today and the jungle of Massive Voodoo ... ahh, we do not find proper words to put here, but we all should celebrate, jump the trees and make some big monkey noisy party up there! Ough! Ough! Aough!

Ultimate Paint Rack Campaign News
We are also close to finish the "Ultimate Paint Rack Campaign" over on Indigogo. Some small numbers of parcels are still to be sent and some of you are waiting for their brushboxes. I, Roman was never much included in all the organisational part of the campaign. I was putting my energies and powers into the blog of MV and the Bananalicious 2. I tried to answer questions and help were I could, but unfortenately sometimes I was no great help as I did not had the inside to help you. This is mainly Raffa's part and right now, right here I know that some of you are waiting for a message back or the next - hopefully last - update on the Campaign itself.

We had to fight many issues with this campaign (post strikes, delivery problems, etc.) and again learned a big deal about organsiational stuff. I ask for your understanding that Raffa went a little weird in the head with his wedding approaching closer and closer and I promise that my big Gorilla foot will kick his booty big time after the wedding, so that everyone of you get informed and we all see the light at the end of the tunnel soon. We both want to thank you for your patience and feel sorry that communication went not so perfect sometimes in the campaign. We both already said that I, Roman will have a bigger part in our future campaigns and will do the communications with proper inside into everything.



Roman & Massive Voodoo Blog
A lot of things are happening these days and compared to 2014 the Massive Voodoo Jungle Party on the blog was a little silent so far. Well, I did not had a great start myself into 2015. You can read about it here if you are interested. BUT, BAZINGA! Powers are back, floating through my venes, celebrating joy of life and it feels good again. Just did a little slower and calmer to restore what seemed to be lost and - oh wonder - it comes back by itself. So, if you ever wonder what's up with yourself, calm and rest and find it. Cure yourself, be yourself, enjoy yourself and regain massive powers. I learned in the past that I can not be unstoppable all the time, sometimes I just have to stop myself and that was a good and hard earned lesson.

As soon as all the bananalicious work is behind me I am planning to bring back the Massive Voodoo Blog back to its grace, with daily updates, stories, experiences, of course miniature paint work and much more. It now feels right to do so. Somehow I also recognized how the miniature painting world changed in the last years. Everything seems to happen on facebook now and well, I will not jump that train. Maybe a little bit, but this jewel we build up here with all you Jungle Painters deserves better than to die because of facebook. Ever thought you are addicted to facebook or your mobile phone with internet access and such? Well, yes I did and I learned to control myself with it. Life is not happening on facebook. It is great to get connected, but it is way too fast to understand and remember things. Give it a thought!

I have some personal anniversaries ahead of me. In October I will hold my 50th Jar's Beginners Class and my next upload on CMON will be my 500th. That is cool and I am looking forward to it. I found fun in painting again and do so behind the jungle curtains, prepare articles for you, Jungle Painters outthere.



Massive Voodoo Blog & Teaching 
Well, I am so happy of every comment I recieve these days and recieved in the past of other painters telling me how much Massive Voodoo influanced their own painting style. How much they learned from us in the past and I will get back to "teach" or let's say "sharing my experience". I do not want to force my painting style on others, for me it is important to give the right hints, tips and tricks to others to maybe guide them on their way to find their own personality in miniature painting and working with colours. Inspiration is what I am aiming for in my teaching and "lessons", but to find out what I mean you have to take a close look on MV,  into yourself and on your own brushwork in the next months ;)

Massive Voodoo Team
Well, I for my part wish that the MV gang gets more active again. I do not know why Peter, Phil, Bene or others do not show their work and talk about their experiences and I do not force them to do so. Maybe we see more of the others in the future, no one knows, but changes are on the horizon. For example, Mati is self-employed again and maybe he will show some balls to show his work again on MV. Sad news ahead too: Sanne is moving out of the studio in late August. She found a new place to stay which is a) cheaper and b) she will be sorrounded by more artists that paint on canvas. She was searching for more inspiration in that direction and found the perfect place to be in the future. We wish all the best to her and I am sure we will stay close friends as Sanne is just too cool to be true!

Massive Voodoo & Collaberations
Well, a lot of things happened in the past behind the jungle curtains and still some more are ahead of us. We will collaberate more intense with other hobby people, companies and even with some that are not even connected with the hobby of miniature painting. Totally cool and unbelievable, but more to this when the time is right, eh? I will not tell you until everything is settled 100%, I learned that in the past. I can only tell you it is absolutely time for BAZINGA!

Closing Words
Well, hard to find proper ones. I can only say that we will celebrate Raffa's and Anci's wedding today and we will party hard. Of course I am Raffa's best man and that is why my last weeks/months/year has been busy with that issue too. I am so much looking forward to today and when we wake up again we will run through jungle and smash some trees again.

Keep on happy painting!
Best Wishes
Roman

PS: If you like drop some congratz to the bridal couple via comment!
BTW: My cats are also fine!



PS:Madness Music if you like!

Well,

some of you - the readers of Massive Voodoo - might know that MV started as a kind of diary for me. About work, about life and everything else. Posts with the label "Kong Fu" is where I find space to speak about personal stuff that is on my mind, heart and soul. It's been a while since the last serious Kong Fu and it helped me in the past to get rid of things that occoupied my mind. I think it is time to speak up now. I was wandering in the dark long enough and I feel the light telling me slowly the way to a better direction. That is why I'll write that Kong Fu.
Why? Let's find out.

Important:
These thoughts are just mine, Roman's. They are very personal. Don't joke on them.
No other MV member is speaking with these words right here. Just me. THIS is definatly too long to read and I am not sure if anyone will do until the end. There is no summary in the end as you have to find reason for yourself to read it and maybe find your own summary in the end.

Something is fighting inside  me since a little while. 

Small annoying demons without a face pulling on my beard and bringing mind pain since a little while. I am exhausted. Why? Because I had a great and creative miniature painting year 2014.
Because I wrote so many blogposts in 2014 concerning the great success of last years "MV's year of the painter", other blogposts, 5th year celebration of Massive Voodoo and many more things concerning the blog, had great painting classes with great students in 2014. Somehow 2014 felt like a year with many goals achieved, earned because of hard work. Day by day, but I also learned to find more space for myself, for my free time. I even lost weight by a diet and discipline and training. I am not able to travel to every contest outthere, I did go to to some and enjoyed them and learned to spent my free weekends away from my miniature work. 2014 felt like riding the waves.



2014 was a great year, but 2015 started somehow totally different. Why?

After the Monte San Savino Show 2014 I felt that my power is not endless. In retroperspective I was at a turning point after the show. My creative energies were emptied. I felt like a wanderer in a desert with no flowers there. I still put the rare energies I could find into bringing daily updates to the jungle blog, finishing the year of the painter with grace and painting some models, doing a cool class in the netherlands with great students, but my way of painting changed. Why?

I missed the flow I have during the projects I love to paint. Miniature painting is my daily work, but last year it did not feel like work. I was so enthusastic, powerful and strong and everything felt easy and great. Best work I ever had, but 2015 did not let me start my engine properly. 2014 was like working with colours without thinking about how to apply this or that colour or how to achieve the perfect blending while painting a miniature project. I had some nice blendings - simply a colour transition from A to Z - here and there, but never focused on achiving them. I just did paint.  

Blending. This word is making miniature painters sick from the inside all around the globe. If you do not achieve a proper blending your miniatures are not worthy - somehow this crawled in my mind and I tried to paint clean and sober in the end of 2014. I had no fun at all. I felt like I lost my spirit.

Then Christmas time arrived and I said to myself: "Roman, you just need some time off from work! Why not do some holidays until new year!" Yeah, great idea, but I fell into a deep hole and for the first time ever in my life I am able to say I felt the meaning of the word "depression". I had no idea what was happening to me. I know about my ups and downs from the past, but a little rest and looking inside myself always helped me to get up again after some time of battery recharging.
But this time was different: I was scared of life, future, the actual moment, losing my comfort zone, which I actually did not have during these days. I felt really bad and had no idea why. After some talks with friends I got the tip out of my family to check my Vitamin D3 level at a doctor. This could be a reason for feeling so unable to handle fear or problems I was facing. So I did. Why? Because it just felt good to have any idea to a solution on what is going on.

Doctor's blood check brought the result. My Vitamin D3 level was so ridicilous low. I took my medicine and felt better straight away. Able to handle problems, get a grip on things I wanted to know and wanted to change. So far, so good. To those of you who do not know about Vitamin D3: It is a Vitamin you gain mainly from being in the sun and somehow I forgot about that in the second half of 2014. It ain't all about Vitamin D3, do not get me wrong here, but pushing that level up helped me to get back on track at least during daily life and helped me to work on other issues.

Ok, having solved some issues for myself meanwhile I was still struggling to find my creativity back and still am. Where has my muse gone? I am interested in finding some new music for myself but do nothing for it. Inside something is screaming for a change, but there is no direction available, at least that is how it seems. I am not interested in miniature news at all. Way too many miniatures on the market and my drawers are still packed with stuff I once thought to be interested in painting them up. No I am not. Not right now. Instead of riding the waves I felt like dying on my surfboard surrounded by sharks and well I gained weight again because of the lack of healthy discipline in the final months of 2014.



Time to find myself again, eh?

Time to look inside myself and find out what I am struggling with. Why I do not feel the creative freedom I seek?

Facebook is making me ill or mad or whatever you might call that. No offence at all. I mean on the one hand the quick connection to all your friends and fellow painters on facebook is great, but on the other hand it takes way too much time to see it all if you have over 1700+ facebook friends. I can not handle it. When I open up facebook for me it feels like somebody is pressing the toilet flush and holding the button. Way too much information rushing by. Hard to get a hold on something and if you want to check back with something you saw a moment before you get lost in the simple size of it. I am not able to answer all my facebook mails anymore. I try to tell everybody that they should contact me via mail as I am much more precise and accourate there. Facebook. I open it up to link a blogpost of MV to it, then I check other people's updates and flush ... my mind is occoupied with that idea, this colour scheme, that cool project, that advertisment, this super-sale, this great information, this blabla here, this comment there, this thumbs up, this wtf and more and more and more and more. Just too much. I think even if my brain says "No, do not take this information in too deep" I am a person who takes stuff I see during my trip in the facebook-world longer as expected inside myself, without knowing it. It distracts me subconsciously. I am feeling bad if I am not able to respond like others or thumb up here and there. Subconsciously it is there and it is driving me mad. I have to put in some distance between the health of my soul/brain and facebook. Still, no offence to anyone. I mean, some might understand what I mean with my talk about facebook, because they feel the same. This might be a reason I can work on. Doing less facebook or using it with more discipline, more focus. Deja vú.

Expectations others might have on me after this beautiful year of 2014, with so many output on the Massive Voodoo blog, with so many miniatures painted. It feels I am not able to live up to these expectations if I am always confronted by them. Expectations I put on myself because I think others have them on me. About quality, about style, about colour, about much more. I have to get rid of that.

Well, I wasn't able to spent much time in the studio with painting miniatures. If the muse is just not there every colour turns grey and the time in the studio I felt my heart aching. Why? I have no idea. So I spent some time at home. Working on Emails, writing on a book, solving issues, pushing other things forward, but not my painting. When I was painting I was painting like a robot. I mean for me it is like riding a bycicle. Painting everyday since several years leads you to that point, but I felt like a robot, my soul was not there. I was unhappy with every brushstroke I've done. Not that anyone else could see that, but I could. There was no soul in it. Just a robot. My brushes went dry. Sharks ate my muse and pooped her out all over the oceans. She seemed lost. 

My painting felt empty for me in those months. My main focus seemed to be on trying to achieve nice blendings and I was losing the way I used to paint. The fun in throwing colours on a canvas.

Then we had the very cool painting class with Alfonso Giraldes. A fellow painter who told me once again what painting truely means. Having fun. Not about thinking too much in terms of quality of a paintjob, as every paintjob done with joy, heart and fun will turn out beautiful. My eyes start to see the beauty of every day colours again. I can not express how thankful I am to him to tell this truth to me while I was wandering in the dark.


On the other hand Alfonso also messed up my way of painting on the safe side. His brutal way of throwing colour is awesome and reminds me a lot of what I am doing when I am in the middle of painting without thinking, but I do not want to paint exactly like Alfonso, so I am not trying to redo what he does. I am taking his input to let it influance my output. When I am in the middle of painting with just my soul guiding the brush. I am confused now. My paintwork is confused now and I enjoy it. I am able to learn about myself once again, to find out with fresh energies what painting and colours mean for me and how I want to transport them on my canvas, let it be in drawings, in paintings, or on miniatures. All canvas, all together.




Well, where does all this talk lead me?
I have no idea. What I know is that I have to paint to find my direction. That is why I am more often in the studio, at my painting table with brush in hand. To find my soul again. Eliminating the high pressure I put on myself by the high expections others might wait for from my side. Failing. Painting. Learning. Having fun. Enjoy. I am on this road and I start to enjoy it once again.

One thing I feel at the moment is that I am not able to do many photos for articles on the blog to explain something I do as I do not know myself. I studying my painting for myself and I can not tell you what I do. Just an example: I tried to take a photo of how I start with this particular skintone:


Well, easy job, eh? Usually I would start to tell you: I did start with painting the shadows of the skin with the colour A, then used the colour B in that mix and then went for the highlights to achieve blabla... well, this first photo was the only photo I took because I was painting without thinking. I just did and the result was just a self study for me and used for some mad progress explanations during a private coaching to mainly explain that there is nothing you can do wrong when you paint. I hope you learned that lesson, Jens? :D

The result looked like this and I had no expextations on quality or blendings or whatsoever. I just wanted to paint and enjoyed it, but I have no idea on how to find the energies nor the right words to explain the readers of MV - you - what I exactly did there:


I was just painting and it felt good. I wasn't painting like that since a while and I am out of training I'd say because of the lack of painting in the past months. Training on how to move the brush, training to feel the right colour to use here and there and so on.

I am just painting at the moment. Throwing the colour that I want to the place I want it to be. This is rough work and I like my rough work more at the moment instead of millions of minutes invested in a clean blended area. Another Roman bust and well, I can not read any Ancient Roman history novels anymore. I am feed up by them. I read so many in 2014 and it was fine, but I am totally going away from reading historical novels at the moment. Finding different books, unusual books with topics I never did read before is what I am seeking at the moment. I need a change and that change needs is conquering its space.


I recently finished Dschingis Cow. A very old conversion work I started several years ago and I finishded it. There are no final photos yet and I am in no hurry to make them, but what I want to explain is with the following photo how I just decided to repaint the overall athmosphere once again and then push forward. On the left you can see a photo of the latest progress, on the right a photo close to the finishing moment. I just said to myself: Finish him, even I see thousand of spots which are not finished in my eyes. It's about expectations that kept me from finishing him. I mean the sculpting work I did back then is no joy to paint at all. It looks cool, but it lacks in concept to find painting joy. So why fight to paint him up in high end quality I thought to myself, just finish him with joy and keep going on to another miniature. I am not saying sorry about the photo quality, but well they are done with the mobile camera. Weird photos. Better ones will follow later on.




I also work on two comissions at the moment. One restauration of a broken figure and the other goal I have is to finish the project of the "Chimera". This is a WIP photo, before I worked on it in front of Alfonso's class. Before the colour storm and right now it looks cool for me but I am looking forward to throw some more colours on that base.




So, really now Roman - where does this blabla lead to?
I am finding my way back to painting and I am confused. I stop keep trying to fullfil expectations I expect others have of me. I am not able to repeat the year of the painter that 2014 has been. I am not able to write so many articles right now. I have to write less on the blog at the moment as I am in urgent need to find myself in my painting or I am going mad and therefore I have to paddle on my surfboard to find my wave to surf on. I have to panic those sharks to get rid of them and collect all that swimming poo. Maybe I can combine the last two.

Happy Painting to you all!
Roman